


Feel Like Acid

by kingfisherBlues



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dog tier messes with people., Emotions are hard and gross., Gen, Long road trips kind of suck., SBURB
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-12
Updated: 2013-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-25 06:43:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/636195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingfisherBlues/pseuds/kingfisherBlues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ignorance like acid, burns away deep and seeps to the core, and it hurts and it stings yet you call for more, because at least then you can't have the knowledge of exactly how much is lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feel Like Acid

**Author's Note:**

> Rated T for cursing and for Davesprite being a dick.
> 
> That was a joke.
> 
> Mostly.

Some days she was too busy to really miss Prospit. John would be organizing a movie marathon that eventually fell apart into cat-calling and snack tornadoes, or Davesprite would be fighting with Jaspersprite again and Jade always gets pulled into those arguments, and there was no time at all to miss anything. Things were happening! She had to be where she was and do the things she needed to do, and also keep Jaspersprite from eating Dave, as that would be rather unfortunate.

But she really did miss Prospit. She missed looking out the window and seeing the future laid out, coy and shy, giving her all the information she needed just at that moment. It was a lot easier knowing things, rather than stumbling along in the dark.

She missed it even more when her ignorance started to hurt.

"You just don't get it, do you," Davesprite said for the millionth time, and Jade wanted to scream and tear out her hair because he was just so fucking stubborn, and she really didn't get it, why did he have to be a jackass?

"Just explain it to me!" she had demanded -- not begged, she was too mad for that. "Maybe then I'll actually understand what you're talking about!"

He flicked his head back, exposing the downy underside of his throat, and that was a sure sign that she had won. Jade grinned, basking in the glow of him acquiescing to her far superior reasoning, but then he made a disapproving noise deep in his throat, and she didn't understand at all.

"'S useless," he slurred. "Whatever. I'm going up to my room."

And he turned his shoulder to her, all contrite and seeking for a change, but instead of letting her get close enough to stick her nose in the feathery ruff around his neck, he soared over the deck of the ship and up to the very top to the control room he had claimed as his own.

Jade stomped her feet on the deck and screamed frustration.

Ignorance was awful. It coiled in her gut as she lived longer with these people and realized that she didn't get it at all. Communication was twenty times easier through a chat client, where the only way to get one's point across was with simple to understand words. People could trick words into sarcasm, sardonic wit, and insincere ramblings, but those were easy to pick apart and deflect, because they were still _words_. They still meant something reasonable.

But it had been years and she was a god, and sometimes she still didn't get what a hand on the small of one's back meant, or why Davesprite tensed up every time she got too close. They were dating! Wasn't that what dating couples did? All she wanted to do was sniff his neck and nip his nose and hold his hand, and he just got tense and sort of shifty.

The worst part was that Dave wouldn't even fucking talk about it.

It was funny, in a sense that it actually wasn't. One of her closest friends, one that had filled her screen for years with red ramblings that she had read and laughed and teased him about -- he wouldn't used his words and tell her what was wrong.

 

When Davesprite got too frustrating to deal with, John was always a willing playmate.

He wasn't ever shifty and sly; he liked barreling around the ship, pushing off of walls and swinging through door frames and generally making the whole place as messy as possible. Jade flew after him, on occasion barking, and did her best to catch up and tackle him to the ground. But John was simply too fast, he was like a leaf on the wind! The best she could do is tree him in a room until he called surrender and came out for more games.

One calmer time -- flip a coin for evening or morning, it's not like it mattered -- she and John had settled down to a game of Checkers. Board games were fantastic, as she had spent years pouring over them and left over effects from brief sprite-hood made her a near unstoppable force. She knew everything about games! She used to be part of one. Games were as easy to understand as words on a screen, but not always as fun.

"John?" she prompted, a thought blooming in her mind.

"Mmm?" he hummed, jumping three of her pieces in one fell swoop.

She took two of his pieces and reached king-hood before starting again. "Did you ever have a girlfriend?"

John blinked, glasses flashing in the glare from the overhead light, and shrugged with a chuckle. "Not really, no. I never thought I was old enough for that, and then, well, the Game happened."

He went back to examining the board. Exasperated, Jade drew up her legs and bit her knee, just hard enough to feel it without actually tearing into anything.

"I guess I was just hoping you would know something about talking to a girlfriend," she added as an afterthought, miserable.

"You don't have a girlfriend!"

"Well, you don't have one either!"

"How is Dave Sprite being a jackass this time?" John asked, and she wondered how he had guessed what lay at the heart of her problems.

"He won't tell me why he's mad at me," she admitted, pawing at her nose with embarrassment. "I don't even know how he got mad in the first place. He just was, and he won't fucking talk about it!"

Her last words echoed around the room; John was wincing, shoulders drawn up defensively, as Jade belatedly realized that she had been shouting again.

"Uh," he started, rubbing his neck. _Did it hurt?_ "Did you guys get into an argument?"

"Yeah. He called me dense and I bit him."

"Well, there's your problem!" John giggled, shoulders still raised, and Jade wondered what his deal was. "Biting your boyfriend is usually a _no-no_ , at least, unless they ask," he finished lamely, a blush spreading across his face, and Jade reveled in the sudden spike of adrenaline as she recognized his embarrassment.

"Well, I didn't want to punch him. He was just being rude! I know I get confused sometimes, but I'm not fucking dense, I'm not, and he shouldn't say that I am just because I'm not a deliberately obtuse jackass like he is," Jade practically whined, that familiar ignorant feeling hurting in her chest as John's expression changed into something she really couldn't parse, and that made her mad and painfully lonely all at once, and she flipped the game board in frustration.

John pushed himself away with wide eyes, staring at her as she kicked out at the board, sending checker pieces rolling.

She recognized his fear a moment too late; she showed him a shoulder in apology, neck displayed and ears pulled back as she tried to make amends.

When he didn't respond to her apology, she whined in her throat. She still had words. She had to use them.

"Sometimes you guys do things and I don't understand what they mean," she admitted, voice low around the pain in her throat. "Maybe I would have? Once, in the past. But anymore..." Jade growled and got up to pace, still kicking out at any game piece that crunched under her foot.

"Huh," John mused, not watching her warily, as she expected, but with something she guessed was thoughtfulness. "I always wondered if going through dog tier had fucked with you."

"I guess it has," Jade heavily replied, and she felt old, older than old, as the weight of her near lifetime of virtual isolation settled heavily on her shoulders.

"You know what hurts the most?" she said to the porthole window, looking out to the streaking green sky instead of at John's familiar but utterly foreign face, "When I was on LOFAF, with Dave? It was so easy to see how embarrassed or flustered or smooth he was being. He talked a lot, he talked nearly all the time! But I could tell when he was trying to flirt or trying to hold me back, and it was amazing, it really was." She half-turned towards John, curiosity traitorously turning over in her mind. "Now, I can't tell if you're going to fight me or hug me, and I can't decide which instinct to trust first."

John was standing stiff, face twisting, and she wished that she could just know what he was thinking. They had been traveling together for two years, the last few humans in existence, and even while she felt closer to him than anyone, he was still impossibly far away.

When he stepped close to touch just behind her ear, she twitched. He twitched as well, tucking his chin into his chest, and her hackles rose at his defensive position, but then he was hugging her, pressing the full length of his neck against her face, and she didn't understand at all.

Jade didn't know what to say. With John pressed so close, she could feel how hard he swallowed, she could feel the weird shake in his limbs as he gripped her tighter. The instinct to bite his shoulder, mark him as hers and make her superior, faded away as the sudden very human connection bloomed in her chest. She hugged him back, buried a nose into the crook of his neck, and sighed.

"Psh, as the only human left on board, I have to demand human-training sessions for the both of you," John teased, ruining the moment.

Jade pushed him away, but she laughed and grabbed his hand and tried to convey without words how glad she was that they were friends.

"Did you know Dave Sprite still chases me away from his nest if I get too close?" John told her as they stood close together in comfortable companionship.

Jade's ears perked up, a grin of amusement breaking out across her face. "Really?"

"Totally," he confirmed, pushing open the porthole with one hand. "Let's go bother him."


End file.
